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Finding the right genre for your novel is critical. I struggled with that when I published my previous books. Dream Chaser: Awakening and Written in Ruberah: Age of Jeweled Intelligence. To my delight, I discovered the Visionary Fiction genre before publishing my third novel—Time Blade: Age of Jeweled Intelligence.

The Visionary Fiction Alliance defines its genre this way. Growth in consciousness is the central theme of the story and drives the protagonist and/or other important characters. My new novel—Time Blade—suggests we are all a part of everything—every proton, particle, and atom in the universe. Time is a character—a mastermind that overseas the evolution of the human family. On the journey into life, every soul deposits atoms of brilliance from its highest awareness into the mastermind. These multi-billions of perfect impersonal intelligence form a mass of luminescence that rolls across the face of dark matter. We are Time.

At its heart, Time Blade is an epic saga about the race for the evolution of the human family. Everyone must ascend to the next universe before Earth’s sun star burns out. Time Blade is the most powerful weapon ever on the planet. It can be used to cut, stop, or reverse Time to prevent actions that could annihilate mankind. We follow eighteen-year-old Sky Hunter through three incarnations in his quest to become the man who carries Time Blade.

In my own life, I believe the journey is the destination. I try to live in the moment, as all opportunities exist there. I wasn’t always aware of this. I spent years chasing the dream of how I thought life should be. I wouldn’t have recognized utopia if it hit me between the eyes, because I was always editing the dream. However, two things remained constant. I would see the world and I would become a writer.

Those who have known me for a long time, meet my novels with a puzzled expression—the kind that says you’ve changed skins more times than a snake with twenty-nine lives. Why don’t you write about that? That might be an interesting tale. Among my many jobs, I worked in advertising in London and New York, modeled in Paris, and partnered in a frog farm in Costa Rica.

Travel is like being in a microcosm of the macrocosm of life’s journey. Long plane rides, high in the sky, give space for overview. Where am I in this process? On one such flight, I realized I had seen a good portion of the world and met a fantastic cross-section of humanity, but I had not yet felt called to write a book. Why? As I gazed out the window into the blue depths of the sky, I felt a slight shift in my awareness. It was as if a door cracked open and the grandest of all adventures stretched out before me—the journey of spirit traveling through form in the mortal plane. Thus, began my writing life.

#3. “Writing is very hard and bad for your health,” – a writing professor at the New School, New York, N.Y.

Back when I dreamed of becoming I writer, I took a course on fiction writing at the New School. This was so many years ago that I’ve forgotten the name of the teacher, but I’ve not forgotten him. He strode into the classroom, took up a piece of chalk and scrawled his message across the blackboard.

“Writing is very hard and bad for your health.”

He wrote this at the beginning of every class, and then stared back at us, his students, eyes narrowed daring the feeble hearted to get up and leave. No one budged for quite some time, but by the end of the course very few remained.

I seldom turned in an assignment to this teacher that he didn’t select it as an example to hold up before the class. This was done anonymously, so only the gulping of my breath; the beating of my heart, or the sudden flushing of my cheeks would give me away. His style was to praise first, words of glory and bright expectation, and then rip to kill. I would slink from the class, vowing to never write another word.

Fortunately, I learned early in life to think for myself, and so I interpreted his warning to suit me. In my experience, working at something you don’t like to do but have to do in order to survive is very hard. Writing is a calling. I don’t mean it’s a high and virtuous profession, but if writing calls you, you cannot help but answer. If you develop a habit to write everyday, writing will provide you with the energy, passion, and imagination it takes to get its stories told through you. Writing will become irresistible.

Also, because of this teacher, I determined I would not allow writing to be bad for my health. I walk three miles a day, do yoga each morning, and lift weights at the gym three times a week. I meditate every day. I’m twenty years into my writing life and I’m fit for many more.

I lived in Sag Harbor, N.Y. at the beginning of my full time writing life, where I attended a writer’s group lead by *Erica Duncan. Erica, a celebrated literary voice, believed there was no such thing as a person who could not write. How lucky for me, as I had neither read a great body of literature nor acquired the degrees someone of her caliber might expect of a student.

Nobody dies on page two. A character might die anywhere in the book, but if death comes as early as page two, then it probably belongs on page one.

Writing this blog caused me to review the first chapter of my latest novel Time Blade, about to go off to my editor. Gosh be darned, if I didn’t find the inciting incident of the story on page two!

I write fantasy, and Time Blade opens with Sky, the main character, traveling by train to Cornwall, UK. Crossing the River Tamar, Sky meets Tamara, Spirit of the River, who appears in a glittering body of astral light. Tamara tells Sky he must return to the ancient lost Kingdom of Ruberah to fulfill a promise he wrote eons ago. I had preceded this scene with seventeen-year-old Sky interacting with an elderly fellow passenger, a woman who never appears in the book again!

I wrote that scene to reveal certain character traits about Sky, which it did and which writing I perfected daily, as the document opens on page one and I could not resist tweaking it at every glance. Now I recognized it as one of those ‘darlings’ that must be killed.

Writer-Up! Off with its head! Nothing is lost! Sky’s character unfolds naturally within the story.

I knew next to nothing about writing when I attended Erica’s workshops, which was a blessing, otherwise I might not have dared to set foot in her establishment. Erica critiqued me as fairly and evenly as she did her most outstanding students.

I read Anne Lamott’s book Bird by Bird some twenty years ago, when I took to the writing life full time. The advantages of writing a shitty first draft recommended by Anne, lingered in my consciousness for years, yet I didn’t write one until I began my third novel last year.

Why not?

I was in a writer’s critique group for most of these years, and out of respect for my fellow writers I felt compelled to turn in a decent piece of work. However, many a well-polished page never made it into the published book. Time wasted? No. Craft learned? Hopefully.

It took me five years to write my first book Dream Chaser: Awakening and another five to complete Written in Ruberah: Age of Jeweled Intelligence, the first of a trilogy. At that rate, it would take me fifteen years to complete the trilogy! Time to speed up. I turned to the shitty first draft, and I wrote one in six weeks for Time Blade: Age of Jeweled Intelligence.

I came to the page every day, terrified, forbidding myself to even glance upon what I wrote the day before. I shoved a sock in the mouth of that nasty little editor in my head, whispering, you’ll regret this. Like hell I will!

Then came the read back. OMG! I repent. What rubbish is this? When will I come to something I can use? My gut fell to the floor. I wallowed and wailed, but once I gained control of my emotions, I read the draft like a puzzle. I began to find bits of story gold here and there. I also spotted unnecessary storylines I might otherwise have chased down, writing them over and over, trying to fit them in.

I wrote three more drafts of Time Blade within ONE year, bringing the story to what I call ‘editor ready.’ I will publish Time Blade: Age of Jeweled Intelligence this fall, cutting my novel writing time from five years to one and a half.

Excerpt from “Time Blade,” coming Fall 2015

Lessons With the Master: Luca, Spiritual Master for Earth, instructs his eight year old student about Time Blade.

“Can I kill someone with Time Blade?”

If a person poses a threat to the future of mankind, you may approach him and offer him an Honor Killing.

“What will I say?”

You will know when the time comes. Time Blade offers a quick, karma-free death and the intended recipient will understand the magnificence of that in his own terms. You, as guardian of the Blade, will have trained in the fighting arts and be capable of causing death with one thrust of the Blade.

“Will I cut his throat?”

No. You will learn a move known as the Glorious Thrust. The Thrust requires great skill. You must stab the Blade below the ribcage, push up through the diaphragm and the lungs and enter the heart, killing swiftly.

The student salivated, thinking about the Glorious Thrust. Violence was shunned in Ruberah. Fighting was an art. Young people trained and fought in competition. Most used light blades—swords powered by Rube. Taking someone’s life was forbidden, but killer instinct had a mind of its own. The student felt it bubbling in his gut as he prepared for a fight and he could smell it on his opponent. He trained rigorously and competed with light swords, fists, wrestling, and spirit fire, the art of using the opponent’s energy against him.